


Distraction Display

by michelel72



Series: Near Point [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Family Issues, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23335498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michelel72/pseuds/michelel72
Summary: May 2005: Jonathan and Mark deal with a surprise visitor.
Series: Near Point [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1571716
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	1. Killdeer

**Author's Note:**

> Still more backstory. This is ultimately about a small event, but (checks wordcount) ... yeah, I don't even know.
> 
> Regarding style: I find heavily represented dialect ("Ahm a-gonna ketch me uh gator cuz them's good eatin'!") really grating and I haven't done that here, but I do use a few light alternate/dialect spellings normally ("gonna" being one) and I've added another convention here to hint at a different accent. I hope it's not too jarring.
> 
> My thanks to gnomi for Hebrew assistance, as well as to A&H for a kosher-kitchen consultation.
> 
> See the "End Notes" for content notes if needed.

(Sunday, May 22, 2005)

For half of the year, Boston's landscape is dull and dead. People occasionally try to quibble with Jonathan about the exact timeframe on that, but he's firm — from mid-to-late October all the way through to mid-to-late April, it's either a barren wasteland or a barren, _frozen_ wasteland. A few crocuses or daffodils towards the end aren't enough to put a dent in that.

But Boston does have two solid months that _almost_ make up for it. Jonathan's favorite is mid-September to mid-October. The leaves are a riot of colors in all directions, the air smells of older leaves and woodsmoke, and it's just chilly enough to justify soups and cider and sweaters. Best month, undefeated.

May comes in at a pretty nice second place, though. The grass finally looks like _grass_ again, instead of drastically underachieving wheat. The trees have actual full leaves. Each week has new flowers or flowering trees. The temperature has finally returned to something acceptable — Jonathan would personally prefer something a little warmer than the mid-50s it's finally climbed to today, but that's partly because people don't really seem to think of soups and cider as being suitable for spring.

June will be nice, too — warmer, but with fewer flowers and without the more immediate relief that winter has finally packed its bags for a while. So, okay, maybe Boston has three decent months. Then it'll get too warm for even Jonathan's taste, and too humid to boot, until The Best Month arrives.

That's for much later, though. For right now, it's been a nice day. The Sox even won their game. Jonathan could wish they had done so half an hour faster or maybe an hour more slowly, but he and Tonya happened to be near BU when they finished up their work for the day, so they parted ways there and he was able to avoid the worst of the Kenmore Square crush.

His street isn't the prettiest, but it's nicer than many. There are little trees and shrubs in front of the buildings on the Comm Ave end of things, and then larger trees and little plots of grass in front of the buildings and then houses as the hillside starts to drop away. Or, well, climb, technically — it's a one-way street as far as cars are concerned, and that way climbs up towards Comm Ave.

Walking from this direction, though, his building is one of the first ones with a bit of grass and a border of flowers, just enough to brighten things up. He unlocks the main door, makes his way all the way to the other end of the main hallway, and unlocks his own door.

Mark is already home, which is nice — but he has company? He didn't say — and that's not one of his friends and his _expression_ and Jonathan has his hand on his gun and fuck, _fuck_ , line of fire, _move_ , and he's clearing his holster —

— and then the other details _scream_ for his attention. Jonathan slams his weapon back into its holster and yanks his hand away, but it takes him several seconds to find his voice.

"... _Dad_?" What the hell is his father doing here?

And why does Mark look like he's being held hostage?

"Hey, Jonny," Dad says, seemingly unaware that he was half a second from being held at gunpoint. He's still turning to follow Jonathan's progress. The table is to the left of the door for anyone coming in, and they've got it shoved up against the passthrough just for some extra space. Dad is in the chair facing the passthrough, the one that otherwise sticks out into what would be a hallway from the front door and past the bedrooms if this place had more walls.

Mark is in the chair that faces the door, tense and blank.

They both were pretty much exactly in a straight line of fire from the door, especially because Jonathan is right-handed, so he automatically threw himself forward and past the intruder, trying to shift the frame to get Mark out of it and ideally interpose himself. He can't really do the latter now, though, without getting far too up-close and personal with both men and impeding his draw.

Which he doesn't need. Because it's just his father. Who he could have _shot_.

He'll freak out about that later. Right now, something is wrong, so any reaction his body wants to have is simply going to have to wait.

Jonathan tugs his Diet Chris persona on over his professional one. Not one of his usual undercover approaches, but desperate fucking times. "Dad, hey. Sorry to rush in like that. Did I know you were coming? I know I forget stuff, but you'd think I'da remembered that."

Mark doesn't even twitch at the heavy Jersey accent, even though he's never cared for it. He's still so damn _tense_ , almost like he's in shock.

No, not _like_. Dad has a refolded newspaper and a half-drunk glass of water in front of him on the table. Mark has an untouched glass of water. Jonathan is starting to put together what happened here.

Good news, his professional persona won't need to break through to save the day. Bad news, this is a fucking mess.

"Just stopping by," Dad says. "Your mom's visiting one of her old school friends." His chair is turned about halfway towards Mark, as if they were having a casual conversation. He pushes himself up to standing.

Jonathan shifts automatically, but conflicting forces turn it into a sort of a twitch. By standing, Dad has moved a little closer to Mark, so Jonathan is pulled to get between them and pushed to draw attention away, while his training has him turning slightly to keep his gun out of reach of the in— _his father_.

On top of those forces, Mark is clearly not okay, and Jonathan is drawn to check in with him, but he's never been any good at public displays of even _acquaintance_ , honestly, even in the friendliest of settings. Which this currently isn't. Even though it's their home. Even though the "public" is his own father.

"Well, it sure is good to see you," he lies. Diet Chris, like Chris Classic, is handsier than Jonathan is himself, and warmly clapping a hand on Dad's shoulder fits the role. Diet Chris is _not_ particularly steely, but the Detective Davis hidden beneath can be. He turns the shoulder-clasp into a slight pressure. "Lucky I came straight home. So nice out there, I almost took a walk instead. Hey, there's an idea. Let's go take a walk, you and me, yeah? I can show you the neighborhood."

It's not really that he's shoving Dad; it's that the slight physical pressure, heavier conversational pressure, positional signalling, and clear weight of expectation all work in concert to turn Dad and guide him to the door, and he's too taken by surprise to resist. "Oh … well …"

One advantage to having neat-freak tendencies is being able to confirm at a glance that Dad isn't leaving anything behind, other than the newspaper. Jonathan shifts around behind Dad to gather that up. He's more relieved than he wants to be that leaning in that direction moves his gun further away from Dad's hands, but then he has to lean back around on Dad's left to get the door open again. "Sure would be a shame to miss such a nice evening," he blathers. "Not like Boston gets too many of those, know what I mean?"

"Well, yeah, that's true," Dad manages, still clearly at a loss to process what's happening. At least he doesn't resist being guided into the hallway.

Once they're both fully out of the apartment, Jonathan pauses and makes a show of patting his pockets. "Keys, keys, hang on a sec …" He steps just barely back into the apartment, holding the door open with his right foot, and mimes checking around for keys on the table or next to the phone.

It's perfect that Jonathan and Mark share a language Dad doesn't know. Or it _would_ be. But while Mark is pretty good at reading Hebrew, he has trouble processing it when it's spoken, and that's at the best of times. Which this emphatically isn't.

So Jonathan is careful to speak slowly and clearly, asking only, " _Koev l'cha_?" — a simple _are you hurt_? If he is, then everything changes and Jonathan goes nuclear.

Mark looks at him blankly.

Jonathan repeats the question, but still nothing. Mark isn't even quite focusing. So he changes tracks. "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra."

That works. Mark blinks, startled, and licks his lips. "Um. Somebody. His arms wide?"

Sure. He doesn't sound certain about the line, but Jonathan doesn't actually know whether that's what comes next, either. The phrase he spoke is the one Tonya mutters when _anyone else_ would quote, "What we've got here is a failure to communicate," and Mark's recognition confirms it's a sci-fi thing. Its familiarity-but-incongruity worked to reboot Mark's brain, which was all it really needed to do, so Jonathan repeats his initial question once more.

Mark finally processes it well enough to shake his head.

Plan A it is, then. Operation Killdeer. Sticking with Hebrew, still speaking very slowly and clearly, Jonathan tells Mark he'll be back, twenty minutes, and waggles his hand midair to signal approximation. Mark manages to nod his understanding, or at least his acceptance that Jonathan is dealing with this.

Jonathan leans back out again and feigns surprise to "find" the keys still in the lock. Dad, still several beats behind, tells him, "You left them in the door, son." There's a fond exasperation there, an echo of the affection Dad used to show for his second scatterbrained son.

Jonathan hasn't been able to get that reaction for anything he's actually _tried_ , and certainly not for anything genuine, in years. He would close his eyes for a moment at the way that stings, but Diet Chris wouldn't feel that and wouldn't react that way if he did, so he doesn't. He just offers a sheepish grin and a cheerful, "Lose my head next."

He's deliberate about re-locking the deadbolt and then about pulling the main building door firmly closed behind them. "Lot of burglaries around here," he offers as an excuse. That's actually not a lie, even if it's currently irrelevant. He openly looks up and down the street. "You didn't park on the street, did you? Gotta have a sticker for that."

"No, I saw the signs. Parked down on that big road."

Well, that's super specific, with Comm Ave to the north and Washington to the east and Beacon to the south. But Dad said "down", so he probably walked up the hill after parking, and he unconsciously shifted very slightly with his words, like a compass trying to orient on his car. Beacon it is.

Jonathan gets them headed the other way, towards Comm Ave. It's not as pretty a direction, but he doesn't want to be too obvious, and this lets him retrace the route Dad would have followed after driving past the building, which he would have done first.

Jonathan keeps Dad on his left. He heard once that walking to someone's right signals subservience or something like that; he thinks it sounds like a load of bull, honestly, but he doesn't mind playing on expectations if anyone else believes it. His real reason is still about keeping his gun further away. His professional persona is feeling prickly today.

He needs to get talking, but that's harder for him with family, and Dad ends up speaking first. "Your friend's quiet."

Jonathan sorely wants to bite Dad's head off for that _friend_ bullshit — Mark has been his legal husband for seven months and his everything-short-of-legal-and-the-church husband for two years more than that. But getting mad won't help, protesting won't help, earnestly explaining won't help, nothing will fucking help.

Replying with _you say 'quiet', I say 'stuck in traumatic-shutdown compliance', to-may-to, to-mah-to_ won't help either. "You know those brainy types," he says instead. "Head always in the clouds." Referring to Mark as brainy isn't taking a risk by giving away anything personal, and it doesn't ask Dad to bother remembering anything either. No one will ever mistake the land-of-a-thousand-bookcases decor of the apartment as being for Jonathan's sake.

Dad makes a vague sound of agreement, as if Mary Ellen isn't brainy, or as if she could ever be described as having her head in the clouds. Then again, no one who actually knows Mark would describe him that way, either.

They get to Comm Ave and Jonathan turns right, as a car would have to do. He keeps a casual eye on the parked cars along the edge of the little service road, but this area is residents-only, too, so he doesn't put too much attention into evaluating them.

"Thought you'd be home sooner," Dad says. He glances over at Jonathan, clearly taking notice of the way he's dressed. "You weren't at church this late, were you?"

It's probably only not knowing which thing to react to first that saves Jonathan from showing any reaction at all. Dad thinks he still goes to church, after all the investigations and revelations of these past few years? Dad somehow imagines that would take him all day? Dad thinks he wears a _gun_ to church? Dad maybe hasn't noticed the gun at all?

"Nah, just getting off work." Having a well-worn pretend personality in place helps. He doesn't really have to think about how to make it seem casual and realistic anymore.

"Diet Chris" isn't really an accurate name for it, but "high school performance of the epic Broadway production that is the real Chris" doesn't exactly roll easily off the tongue. Jonathan can actually pull off a pretty close impression of Chris, but simulating that much natural charisma takes a _lot_ of energy, so he only goes full-on when he absolutely has to. Even one Chris is honestly a little much for family settings anyway. Diet Chris is the toned-down version, the echo, the heavily influenced little brother who will never measure up but makes the effort anyway.

Diet Chris is uncomplicated and undemanding. Diet Chris is his best guess of what his family actually _wanted_ him to be.

Other than straight, of course. There's nothing he can do about that.

"They make you work on a Sunday?" Dad asks, and come _on_.

Jonathan shoves his hand into his pocket and wraps it tightly around his keys, the slight pinch providing just enough of a diversion for him to hold the bland facade. "Somebody's gotta," he manages finally. "Crime never sleeps, you know. Were you waiting long?"

"Couple of hours, I guess," Dad says. "Nice out, so I just read the paper out front."

Yeah, Jonathan figured as much. He asks about Mom's friend — he wants to say _your friend's friend_ ; he doesn't let himself — and then about more general topics as they head towards and then turn right along Washington. Dad isn't usually one for a lot of words, but it's easy enough for someone who knows him well to keep him talking.

They had a kind of closeness for a while, first going out on long walks when Jonathan got too stressed about school, and then later working together to establish Jonathan as Granddad Shaughnessy's caregiver so Mom could get back home. It was nice while it lasted, but it was always more shallow than it seemed. It depended on Jonathan hiding important parts of himself and offering an endless series of excuses for why he hadn't found a nice girl to date, or a nice girl to take to the prom, or a nice girl to settle down with.

Jonathan just didn't realize how shallow it was at the time. He was too busy trying to convince himself that he would somehow find a way to care about nice girls and the excuses could stop. When he finally realized that wasn't happening, he figured what he had was good enough. A shallow closeness was still closeness.

What they had _wasn't_ good enough to survive anyone knowing the truth about him, though. Dad pulled back, wielding his confusion and incomprehension like shields.

Jonathan might have believed he deserved no better than that, but he had Katie. She was only _thirteen_ when he told her, and she was confused, and she didn't understand, but she set her jaw and fought her way past all of that, just for her love of him. They both remained confused about all of it for years, but at least they were confused _together_.

He always, always, always knew Katie was on his side.

They pass through the short commercial district and into a residential section of Washington, crossing over into Brookline as they do so. This street runs pretty sharply southeast down to its intersection with Beacon, the creatively named Washington Square. Jonathan suspects Dad drove that way, but he doesn't want to go that far, so he takes a chance by guiding them into the next right turn to cut the corner. This takes them through a very pretty few blocks as they head more directly down towards Beacon.

Unfortunately, Jonathan is running out of irrelevant topics. "You're not driving back tonight, are you? Do you need me to call a hotel or something? Katie would usually put you up, but I think they're all sleeping in the family room at this point."

The Fourniers have been renovating their upstairs, because they are _actually insane_. They want each kid to have their own room — they can't quite make all the kids' rooms the same size, but they figure that's still more fair than making only two of them share or anything like that. They've got Emma's fourth birthday coming up and Sarah isn't walking _yet_ but will be before too much longer and Katie is nearing eight months and still dealing with depression, but she and Dan say if they don't do it now they'll never get around to it. They look a little wild around the eyes pretty much all the time anymore, so Jonathan keeps his mouth shut and sneaks in some extra sweeping and dusting when he can.

He's not asking why they figure three kid-sized bedrooms will remain exactly enough for their kids. That topic lies deep within the land of things he doesn't think about.

"Haven't really decided yet," Dad says. "I don't mind driving at night."

"If you'd just called ahead, I coulda cleared out the spare room for you," Jonathan says, because he's not above rubbing it in.

Yeah, Dad thought staying over was least an option. Who knows if he ever actually would have asked, or if he was maybe waiting for Jonathan to offer. If he was counting on it, well, that's what he gets. When you assume, _et cetera_.

"Don't leave it too late," Jonathan says, because he does actually care. "They get deer in that stretch down through Connecticut. A night in a motel would run you a lot less than rebuilding a front end." Or, you know, the likely injuries or _death_ from a collision with a large animal in the size of car Dad usually drives, even if he wasn't in his sixties. His vision and reaction time seem fine for his age, but night driving through deserted stretches like that seems like such an unnecessary risk.

"We'll manage," Dad says, in his the-adults-have-it-handled tone. Jonathan squeezes his keys again. "How's your sister doing?"

Danger, Will Robinson. "As well as you can expect, I guess. That depression is a hell of a thing. And so much puking …" He makes a disgusted face. It's actually closer to genuine than most of his performance; he's always had a particular dislike for vomiting, from either side of the experience. With his job, and more recently as a devoted brother and uncle, he just has to suck it up and deal, but there's a chance Dad remembers his aversion.

Dad does look faintly amused, which is something. "You know yet if it's a boy or girl?"

Jonathan does, because Katie isn't saying anything to anyone, but she has tells. But he's not giving away her secrets. "Nah, she's going for the surprise," he lies. "People get so gross about wanting to give sporty stuff if it's a boy but not if it's a girl, you know?"

They apparently say things like that _to her face_. Even the ones who know she's an athlete. She was frustrated about it when she was pregnant with Sarah, because once she told people she was having a girl, she was promptly given only pink-and-frilly baby gear. She's up to furious this time around about people wanting to "program" her next baby. Jonathan doesn't think it's _that_ bad, but … yeah, people are getting weirdly mad at her about it.

"Well, if you do find out, your mom would love to know," Dad says.

It's _hilarious_ that Dad thinks Jonathan is going to rat Katie out. Is he supposed to think he can buy their affection by betraying the only member of his entire family who has stuck with him?

"She's itching to buy clothes for the new little one," Dad adds. Because he isn't really listening, because he doesn't anymore, and clearly the only clothing options for a _newborn_ are manly-man and girly-girl, and who cares how hurtful that is to Katie. _Squeeze, squeeze_.

Jonathan feigns a casual shrug. "I dunno. A surprise seems kinda nice. All that testing and poking, and sometimes those tests are wrong anyway."

Sometimes you don't get the kid you expect. Maybe that doesn't have to be the end of the fucking world, or even of the relationship.

Oh, who is he kidding.

Jonathan leaves too much of an opening in the conversation and Dad speaks again. "Your mom has missed seeing you."

Yeah, Jonathan can tell by the way she isn't here. "Wow, yeah, me too. Sorry I can't get back down anymore, but my partner's a mom now. Her place is with her little one on Thanksgiving and Christmas, not covering for me." _Her place_ is wherever she decides it is, but Dad is all about chivalry. Jonathan is too, really, when he doesn't watch himself. In this particular context he might as well just throw himself in headfirst. "I miss seeing everyone, but I gotta take care of her."

He would be in for it if Tonya ever heard him say that. Luckily she never will.

"But I call," Jonathan points out, "and I coulda spent some time with both of you now if I'da known you were coming." Yes, he's laying it on thick. It won't really matter.

He does call, every few weeks, the days laid out on the calendar for the entire year. Mark saw how restless he gets during his obligatory calls and bought him a set of cell-phone earbuds with a microphone and a mute button. Jonathan plugs it into his phone and calls and then cleans the bathroom as he utters a series of _uh-huh_ and _oh, really?_ and _and what did she say then?_ responses, muting when he has to run water or flush. Dad gets to exchange awkward how-are-yous before handing off the phone, Mom gets to tell her stories and feel like the proper attention is being paid, Jonathan gets to avoid guilt trips from them and keep his own feelings of guilt in check, and Mark gets a regularly cleaned bathroom in exchange for his minor one-time expense and show of thoughtfulness. Everybody wins.

Yet another right turn has them heading west along Beacon. Jonathan now has to pay much more attention to the parked cars. Beacon is split in half here, the C Line running down the middle, and this is one of the sections that has angle parking along the trolley tracks in addition to the parallel parking along the sidewalk. There are rather a lot of parked cars in total.

"We're probably not up here long," Dad says. "Just up here for your mom's friend."

One, Jonathan did notice that, and two, he suspects it's half bullshit. Too bad they tipped him off first.

"Well, next time, don't hang out in front of my building, okay? Like I said, we get a lot of burglaries. You're lucky the lady in that front apartment is out of town this weekend — she has to call it in when she sees people lurking outside her window, just for her own safety. It'd be awkward for me to have to talk a bunch of unis down about my own father loitering, you know?"

There's no woman; Jonathan has invented her just to exploit Dad's chivalry. There's not even an apartment. That window is to the management office. Jonathan feels a little guilty for telling so many lies to his own father, but, well … he's Catholic. If he couldn't manage to carry on despite a crushing load of guilt, he would have given up on everything decades ago.

A bunch of unis showing up is a distant possibility, so that much at least isn't a lie. That would be a hell of a lot worse than _awkward_ , though. Jonathan's address is accessible to anyone in the department who looks it up, but no one currently has any particular reason to do that. Having the local uniforms specifically associating his address to him personally … that's not really safe for him, and it's exponentially more unsafe for Mark. They'd have to move. Jonathan doesn't want to move.

Mostly, though, he just doesn't want to put Mark through this again.

"Didn't mean to make trouble for you, son," Dad says. There's a bit of apology there, but there's also reproach. As if spending a couple of hours not interacting with Jonathan is somehow a favor, just because it happened on Jonathan's street.

Jonathan finally spots a likely candidate, but he keeps checking the other cars as they walk, just to make sure he doesn't overlook the right one because of a hunch. "Well, it all turned out okay in the end this time," he says. If the reproach isn't text, he can ignore it. No one thinks he's especially bright. That might as well work for him.

Saying everything is okay is yet another lie, but since Dad didn't notice what he did, it's safer for Mark if Dad remains ignorant.

This really does seem like the right car — the plate actually is for New Jersey, and while it's not the only one of those he's seen just on this walk, the size, the make, and the condition of the car all fit Dad, and the "subtle" bumper sticker fits Mom. Dad isn't paying enough attention for Jonathan to tell just by his reaction, so Jonathan slows to a stop next to the car and conspicuously looks it over. From the corner of his eye, he can see the way Dad shifts as he realizes where they are. Yep, right car.

Jonathan nods down at it. "What was wrong with this one?"

"Just a bad starter," Dad says, his attention now fully on his car. "Little rough at high speeds, but I'll get that sorted out."

Jonathan doesn't bother to sigh. _Why, yes, Dad, I_ did _track down your car among the dozens we've passed and the hundreds parked on this street you didn't bother to name, even though I've obviously never seen it before. So glad you noticed._

There's no point saying anything. It's like a joke — if you have to explain it, it wasn't successful.

He's not sure why he's even bothering to be surprised. He's always been invisible. Those few years got his hopes up that he might be able to change that, but he really should have known better.

He goes ahead and drops Diet Chris, settling more fully into the underlying work persona. Not his hopelessly incompetent general one, of course. He'd prefer the watchful stability of the one he uses when he and Tonya aren't entirely sure what they're walking into, but it doesn't really fit here. He settles instead for the one he uses when he's dressing down people who only barely missed getting into major trouble. "Seriously, call next time. You shouldn't have to cool your heels just because you forgot my schedule —" dammit, he meant to say _didn't know_ , not _forgot_ "— and I wouldn't want you stuck out there all night if you showed up on a day when I was out taking pictures midstate."

Dad doesn't pick up on the too-accurate phrasing anyway. "Oh, you still take pictures?"

Yes, he does, because Dad _gave him that_ and it _matters_ to him and it deserves better than — Stop. Enough. "Yeah, sometimes. If it absolutely has to be a surprise, meet me at work." He pulls a contact card from a pocket and scrawls the actual address on the back before handing the card out.

"I know where you work, son," Dad says, but at least he takes the damn card.

Sure he knows. "Well, just in case. Not sure if they've switched me to a different location since the last time you stopped by." They haven't reassigned him since he made detective, but then, Dad's never actually stopped by, so as far as another charge of lying goes, that one's probably a wash.

If Dad ever does decide to surprise Jonathan at work, Jonathan will probably lose it worse than Mark is right now, and he'll probably end up getting himself fired. He's not a fan of any part of that, but it's better than taking any chance Mark will ever have to deal with this again.

"Anyway," he says, warning tone clear. Or it should be, but Dad hasn't even noticed that Jonathan's accent has changed, so Jonathan shifts his tone lower, makes it unmistakable. "Call ahead or stop by my work. Don't just show up at my place."

"All right," Dad says slowly. He's not stupid, but the willful ignorance he holds between them makes him seem a lot slower on the uptake than he is with anyone else.

Jonathan swaps back into Diet Chris and gives him a bright, cheerful smile. "Great!" Tonya says it's creepy when he switches affect that sharply; Dad just blinks a bit. "Good to talk with you!" The tragedy is that it really was, a little, despite everything. "My love to Mom!" He holds out the newspaper.

"... Yes, all right," Dad says, only just realizing he's being dismissed. He accepts the newspaper and shuffles a bit, uncomfortable.

Part of Jonathan badly wants to fix that, but he blocks the instinct. He actually needs Dad to associate discomfort with this drop-by.

Dad's clearly considering and discarding the idea of a hug and then the idea of a handshake. "Well." He glances at his car again and then back, finally accepting how this is going to go. "See you later then, Jonny."

Jonathan redirects the desire to clench his teeth at the nickname, hitching the smile up another degree instead. "Later, Dad."

He should leave it there, he _really should_ , but he _can't_. He puts his hand out and starts to lean forward slightly, mixing blatant and subtle signals. Dad hesitates a moment but still responds automatically, accepting his hand, and Jonathan pulls him into the sort of manly half-shake, half-hug Chris is fond of, complete with back pat. He pulls himself free a little earlier than really fits the role, before Dad can pull away too quickly himself.

The gesture helped; Dad's still not really comfortable, but the tension around his eyes has eased up a bit. He backs off, gets into his car, and pulls away.

Jonathan doesn't think Dad is particularly looking back at him in his mirrors, but he raises his arm in a farewell gesture just in case, holding it for a few seconds, and then starts walking again.

He waits until Dad's car is completely out of sight. He waits another five paces, just to be absolutely sure. Then he drops the various personas, picks up the pace significantly, and pulls out his cell phone.

Of course he gets the answering machine. Of course. "Hey. It's Jon. Did you know Mom and Dad were in town? Because if you did, I _really_ would've liked a heads-up." He's snarling. He makes himself take a deep breath. "And if you didn't know, sorry for yelling and this is _your_ heads-up. I don't know if they're thinking of stopping by. I didn't see luggage for an extended stay in their car or anything, but I couldn't check the trunk."

If Mom knows how far along Katie is now, she'll be trying to insert herself really soon. Jonathan doesn't actually know who knows what at this point. Not for sure.

"I tried to suggest you're still at the excessive-puking stage, so … suck in your gut and think about fish, I guess. Or go stay with a friend for a few days or something, just be not-there, I don't know. Gotta go — I've got a mess to clean up here. Good luck." It's probably rude to just hang up, but he's got somewhere to be.


	2. Possum

Jonathan isn't going to run; he's not in good enough condition to maintain his breathing perfectly for a run _uphill_ , and showing up panting won't help. He was guessing how long he would be away, though, and while his estimate of about twenty minutes was close, he doesn't want to be any later than he absolutely has to. He's just a little winded by the time he gets to the front door of his building.

When he unlocks and opens the door of the apartment, the first thing he sees is Mark, watching the door warily. His elbows are still propped on the table, so he's had his head in his hands but was alarmed by the door being unlocked and opening. His glasses lie abandoned on the table.

"Just me," Jonathan assures him quickly. "I'm alone."

He heads right over and places his fingertips on Mark's shoulder very lightly, making sure physical contact is actually welcome. Mark immediately curls towards the touch, so Jonathan pulls him into the closest thing to a hug he can manage at this angle.

"I'm sorry," he tells Mark. "I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry, I never thought he would —" _lie in wait like a basher in an alleyway_ is yet another thing that would help nothing to say "— just show up like that."

Mark makes an inarticulate sound against Jonathan's midsection.

Jonathan just holds him for a while, waiting for his breathing to even out.

"Can you tell me what happened?" he asks finally.

" _Nothing_." Jonathan knows that tone of voice well, though he doesn't often hear it from Mark. Frustrated, ashamed, kicking himself.

"Starting from the beginning is good, but I don't think you have to go all the way back to _formless and void_." He will never belittle or dismiss anything Mark feels, but he's Chris's brother. He wants to lighten the mood just a little. Mark doesn't take the bait to quibble about questionable translations, though. After a few seconds, Jonathan prompts gently, "Shanna dropped you off?"

Mark starts to nod but apparently decides that's ineffective with his head still tucked against Jonathan. "Yeah."

"And she didn't wait until you got inside?"

"There's no _need_ for that," Mark mutters, an old irritation animating his voice.

"Not a judgment," Jonathan says, keeping his tone mild. "Just a question." It is _absolutely_ a judgment. Yes, Mark is touchy about implications that he can't manage to get himself from a car and into a building without assistance. Yes, there are more dangerous neighborhoods. But she's a woman living in a big city. She really ought to know the risks.

Jonathan will call her later, if he has to. Mark isn't nearly paranoid enough, after everything he's been through, so Jonathan just has to be paranoid for both of them.

He draws a breath for his next question, but Mark tenses and speaks first. "Are you actually home yet?"

Jonathan tenses himself as he realizes the answer. "No. Sorry." He pulls away.

There's no earthly reason for them to have a code about this, but it's a way to be a little silly about a serious subject, so it stuck. Mark opposes guns just on general principles, and his time in Philadelphia left him with an unfortunately justified wariness about police. The latter has waned over time, but one of their very first agreements was that Jonathan would try to leave his job outside their apartment and that he would always secure his gun right away after coming home. He's not supposed to let himself get diverted, and he's officially "not home yet" until his gun is put away.

It's supposed to be an automatic script: come inside, lock the door, keys on table, gun away. Four simple steps. How can he not manage four simple steps?

His keys aren't even on the table. How can he not manage _three_?

Where even are his keys? Not in his hands, not in the pocket they should be in, still not on the table, not in the other pants pocket … dammit. Maybe if he walks it through again —

Yeah. They're in the door. The first time was on purpose, more or less, but this time _wasn't_ and he really doesn't have an excuse. He extracts them, closes the door, locks the deadbolt, and heads for — _dammit_. Keys _down_ , on the _table_ , this is _not hard_.

Mark is watching him, one corner of his mouth curling up despite everything, as if Jonathan's disaster of a brain is somehow hopelessly endearing. Which just throws Jonathan off again. Start over. Okay. Door is closed, deadbolt is locked, keys are on the table, gun is next. He heads to the bedroom.

Locking the gun in the safe is its own long-familiar routine, so at least he gets that done finally. He dumps his other equipment while he's there and turns to head back to Mark, but he's starting to get jittery. Really jittery, really fast. He doesn't have _time_ for this, dammit. Mark _needs_ him.

But he's been putting off his own reactions for too long and his body is fed up with waiting. It pushes him to move even as he's trying to fight the shaky feeling back down, even though there's nowhere to _go_ in here. It's a bedroom in a city apartment, the bed takes most of the space, he can't manage more than about two or three paces in any direction, he _can't_ act like this in front of Mark right now —

Finally, desperate, he grabs a pillow from the bed and crams it against his face and … makes noise.

It's not a scream. It's more than a growl. Some kind of roar, maybe.

Doesn't matter. It's fury and hurt and failure and guilt, so much guilt, more than even he knows how to choke down all at once. It's noise, and it's force, his fisted hands shaking with the effort of containing it, muffling it. He doesn't want to scare Mark.

Mark has damn well had _fucking enough_ of being scared today.

After he uses up all his air, Jonathan relaxes his hands just enough so he can breathe, but he doesn't lower the pillow fully yet. He waits three more seconds, four, five, just in case.

But that was apparently enough to bleed off the worst of his reaction and the rest meekly submits to being shoved back down where it belongs. Right now is _not about him_.

He focuses on the weight of his jacket and the weight of responsibility it represents. He puts the pillow back and then tugs the jacket straight, smooths down his tie, adjusts his cuffs. Then, with reluctance, he carefully tucks away his professional persona. It steadies him, and he'll need many of the skills he acquired with it, but it makes Mark uncomfortable.

 _Now get the fuck back out there before Mark decides he_ did _hear something and it_ wasn't _just a neighbor. The last thing he needs is something else to worry about. The absolute fucking least you can do right now is not make things even worse. Even you should be capable of that._

A surprising number of people seem to think Jonathan is _nice_. For many of them, he actually tries to be, and he's managed to snow the rest. There's really only one person who deserves to be exposed to his most vicious impulses.

Conveniently, that person is standing right here, being useless. As usual.

_You fucked up again. You were too late again. You let him get hurt again. What purpose, exactly, do you even serve if you can't ever manage to protect him?_

_It will never, ever make sense that he chose you, but he did. Stop giving him even more reasons to regret that. Get the hell out there and help him put himself back together again, you … you …_

But he's so utterly useless that he can't even come up with a sufficiently foul thing to call himself. Which kind of says everything, really. He takes a deep breath, erases all traces of self-loathing from his expression, and heads back out.

Mark is still at the table, eyes open but unfocused as he tries to regain his equilibrium. His chair is at an angle, too, because it's hard for him to square it and pull it in — but it's angled the wrong way, towards the door and the side chair. Usually his chair is angled towards the kitchen, which is where he's usually coming to the table from. Dad probably repositioned it for him.

Dad was sitting in the chair Jonathan usually takes, when it's just the two of them and they have the table pushed back like this. Jonathan pulls that chair over so it's right next to Mark, positioned so they can more or less face each other, close but not quite close enough to make Mark feel pinned and trapped. Jonathan looks enough like his father that the original chair positions would only be a reminder.

Sitting down is pretty much the last thing he wants to do right now, but again: not about him. He gathers Mark's hands into his own and uses his thumbs to draw gentle, random patterns. Grounding contact.

"I think I know what happened," he tells Mark. "If you really don't want to go through it, we won't. But it usually bothers you when you can't remember things, so should we go over it while it's fresh?"

It isn't fresh at this point, honestly. It might have been if Jonathan had shoved Dad out the door and dealt with this immediately, but he suspects even that wouldn't really have been fast enough. Besides, that just would have led to Dad knocking and demanding answers and a much bigger mess.

There really weren't any perfect options by the time he finally got home. At least he probably took the least terrible one.

"I suppose," Mark sighs. "Nothing really happened, though, honestly."

Mark has had far too long to second-guess and berate himself for his perfectly reasonable reaction. "Shanna dropped you off and left," Jonathan prompts. He keeps his thumbs moving along Mark's hands, a carefully calculated distraction. "You went up to the front door. Did you see anyone?"

"I'm not sure. I wasn't really paying attention at first." Mark glances down at their hands for a moment, puzzled, but then decides not to worry about it. "I unlocked the door, and … I didn't realize he had come up behind me …"

Fucking _fuck_ , that's enough to explain everything right there. Jonathan gives Mark a few seconds and then asks, "Did he say anything?"

"Yes …" Mark says, but he's having trouble remembering clearly. "I think … he was perfectly civil, but I panicked a little, even though —"

"He startled you," Jonathan corrects. "You were startled. That was reasonable."

Mark doesn't look convinced but doesn't argue the point directly. "He said something about _Jonny's friend_ , and I didn't understand who he meant at first."

Jonathan squeezes Mark's hands just a little for that.

"But … then he said something about me being a teacher, and he kept looking at my crutches, and … and I just …"

"You froze," Jonathan says. "It's a _perfectly natural_ reaction to being threatened."

"But he didn't threaten me!" Mark protests. "Even if he _had_ , or even if I wasn't sure, I could have said he had the wrong person. I could have left. I could have yelled for help. I could have called _anyone_. There was no _reason_ for me to just … _shut down_ like that."

"You couldn't have done those things," Jonathan tells him. "You feel like you could now, because your brain can go over the scenario and give you lots of options. But that's not what happens in the moment. Adrenaline takes over and narrows things down for you. That includes all that extra _thinking_ you're doing now — it went offline. It _had_ to."

Jonathan doesn't know all the science, but he knows enough to get by. Or at least enough to amuse Mark with his attempt.

"If you've practiced certain actions, you can fall back on those, but if you haven't, you've got the same default set everyone gets. Ancient history, walking across the savannah, you suddenly see a lion — three strategies survived, right? It's _fight, flee, freeze_. It's not _fight, feign a forgotten appointment across the veldt and saunter away, freeze_. Lions are notoriously unsympathetic to scheduling snafus."

Mark looks just a little exasperated at how hard Jonathan is working to get even a little smile from him. It's still a reaction. Jonathan will take it. But then Mark objects, "Those are threat reactions. Your father was never a threat."

"Wrong," Jonathan says, just sharply enough to focus Mark's attention. "A strange man came up _behind_ you, _after_ you had unlocked the front door. He made it clear he knew you, he mentioned your connection to me, you know my job and coworkers are a risk to you, and he kept drawing attention to your crutches. _Those were all potential threats_ , and your body knew it. Your body knew it was safer to prepare you for an emergency than to wait and see."

Jonathan is carefully skipping over the _father_ angle. Mark's father died before Mark even finished high school, and Mark doesn't talk about him much, but if he did realize he was dealing with Jonathan's father at the time, that just would have upped the threat factor. What he's already listed is plenty, though. There's no need to make things even more tense now.

Jonathan cradles Mark's left hand in his own, palms up, like he's about to do a reading or something silly like that. With his right index finger, he traces from the center of the palm all the way to the tip of Mark's index finger. "Fight." He repeats the gesture with the middle finger, "Flee." Then once more with the ring finger, "Freeze."

He has to trace across Mark's wedding ring for the last, which is an unexpected complication. He didn't really think this all the way through. Please let this not backfire.

"You won't fight," he points out, folding Mark's index finger in. He's careful not to say that's not a judgment, because it isn't but he doesn't want to use the same words now for truth that he used to lie earlier. Jonathan absolutely believes in punching back, but this isn't about him. This is about Mark and his charmingly complicated collection of ethics.

Mark gives him an odd look but uses his thumb to hold his index finger in place, going along with it for now.

"Your options for flight were very limited, because he was between you and the street and Shanna had left. That's not about whether you could get in unassisted, I promise. It's a safety thing for anyone — ask Katie what I've said to her about it. I think anyone dropping someone off should make sure they get inside safely, because people _do_ hang around to wait for doors to be unlocked."

He'll show Mark the crime maps later, much later, when Mark can handle them. They live in a student neighborhood near a T stop. That means the rate of burglaries and thefts is high. He thought Mark already knew that.

"Someone watching can come intervene or make a phone call. But we can't change that now. So flight really wasn't an option." He folds that finger down as well.

Mark sighs as he understands where Jonathan is going.

Jonathan draws his finger along Mark's third finger again, just for emphasis. "Freeze was your strongest option. Go along, comply, don't provoke. Wait. You knew I would be home eventually." He touches Mark's ring. Good, this actually worked out.

But then Mark says, "Stop that." Jonathan starts to pull his hands away, worried that his made-up nonsense is making things worse, but Mark catches them and holds them in place. "You weren't late. You had no reason to drop everything and race home."

Oh. Jonathan just put too much weight on his last word. "Still wish I had," he says, making sure his voice is light. "You knew help was coming. I know it bothers you that you froze up, but you really did have good reasons to react the way you did."

Jonathan sees this a lot in his job — people berating themselves for not fighting back, thinking they "let" themselves be assaulted. Even the ones who would only have gotten themselves hurt or killed by trying because they were overmatched or undertrained or simply underpracticed. Even the ones who, like Mark, actively choose nonviolence. So many of them — too many of them — still end up blaming themselves for not acting like action-movie heroes, rather than blaming the people who chose to harm them in the first place.

There's a kind of sense to it, though. The three core reactions aren't mutually exclusive — someone could try to flee but fight if they don't make it, or freeze while they evaluate the situation and watch for an opening to flee or fight. Maybe this reaction is just a case of that, finally seeing a chance to fight and taking it, in a twisted sense. After all, fighting yourself means you already know all your opponent's strengths and weaknesses. You don't really have to worry that you're going to turn the tables on yourself by producing a previously unsuspected weapon, right?

"Your body did the best it could to keep you safe. Okay? If it really bothers you ..." He traces along Mark's middle finger again. "Give yourself more options. Make sure you always have a way to retreat. And we can give you a few other things to practice, if you really want to be able to draw on them in a crisis." He draws his finger along Mark's smallest finger for that, just because it doesn't fit the first three categories. "Your brain is _amazing_ , and that includes recognizing it didn't have the right tools today and getting out of the way."

Mark studies his face. Jonathan doesn't have to hide anything; he means everything he's saying, absolutely. Mark looks strangely exposed without his glasses.

"You panicked," he says finally, "didn't you? You never rush in like that, and you _never_ touch your gun in front of me. You try not to let me see it at all. You kept your head, though."

Jonathan had honestly kind of hoped Mark hadn't really registered all that. But no, of course he's not that lucky. "Practice," he tells Mark. "This isn't a competition. I've had practice and training, years and years of it." He traces Mark's smallest finger again. It might as well stand for this. "We're trained to assess situations quickly, and we practice it. We're trained to take control of situations, and we practice that, too. And …"

Maybe he shouldn't get into this, but he wants Mark to understand how important this part is. He touches the center of Mark's palm.

"We get a lot of training in escalation, really." He slides his finger to the fold that represents the bottom knuckle on Mark's index finger. "Showing a gun is an escalation — it _can_ put you in control, but it makes things more tense. That's part of why I wear a suit — a lot of detectives don't, but walking in with your gun sticking out can be a provocation. We have to recognize that. We should be _choosing_ it each time we do. I keep mine out of sight as much as I can, a de-escalation." He draws his finger back down to center for a moment.

Then he goes back the other direction, past the first knuckle and to the second. "Touching a gun is another escalation." On to the next. "Drawing a gun is another." All the way out to the fingertip. "Aiming a gun at someone is a _major_ escalation. Sometimes we have to. Sometimes it's necessary. But people can get hurt so easily with that approach, and every one of those points is a chance to de-escalate. Not always a _viable_ chance, but a chance. I work better way back here —" he moves his finger to the center of Mark's palm once more "— so I'm always looking for those chances."

He glances up from their hands. The way Mark is looking at him … he sighs, just a little.

"Stop giving me that look. I'm not fishing for credit." A small, selfish part of him wishes he could. He's conscientious about this stuff because it _matters_ , but he can't help liking the way it feels to know Mark notices. But this isn't about that. "My point is that I've had to work on that. I can't just pause the situation at every decision point and weigh all the options fully. I had to train my brain to focus on watching for those chances, so I can still _have_ those options when everything is chaos and stress. I had to practice, over and over. And I still don't always get it right — my training had me jumping all the way to here —" last knuckle before the fingertip "— before I could register enough information to pull back today. I'm frustrated about that, but it just means I need to keep working on it."

He's strangely proud at how much his frustration over that _isn't_ showing in his voice. Yes, he thought Mark was in danger, and yes, things weren't adding up, but he _can't_ overreact like that.

"I don't beat myself up for not being able to drop everything and run a marathon, even though I know Tonya can. Don't beat yourself up for not being able to respond to crisis situations the way I do. Okay?"

After a few seconds, Mark sighs deeply. It's partly annoyance, but it's mostly concession.

Jonathan keeps quiet for a minute or two, letting Mark process things. He goes back to gently manipulating Mark's hands in random idle patterns, as much to soothe himself as for Mark's sake.

"Now that we've settled that," he says finally, "there's something I should make sure you know. Just in case." Dad might just show up again anyway, or he could suddenly decide he wants to know even the first thing about his middle son's life. Either way, they can't assume Mark will never have to see him again. Mark should know what he would be dealing with and what he doesn't have to worry about. "I said you were right to feel threatened, and I meant that. But ... if you do run into Dad again, you should know he would never lay a finger on you."

Mark frowns a little, trying to reconcile the contradictions in what Jonathan has just said. But then his gaze drifts down and over to his crutches. "Right," he mutters, bitter.

"He's really not the sort of person to start a fight," Jonathan tells him. "And even if he was …" He reaches past the crutches and taps the arm of Mark's glasses lightly. "I never really understood that whole thing about _you wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you?_ , but I know it was big for his generation. Weird, considering how many people wear glasses."

If Dad _did_ ever feel an urge to throw a punch, of course the crutches are the first-place reason he wouldn't actually do it. But the glasses really do show up in second place, and Mark shouldn't have to get stuck in bitterness just because Jonathan wanted to _reassure_ him.

There's a third-place reason, too — orientation. Dad probably figures it's unsporting to hit a guy who's not into girls. Guys like that are all weaklings and sissies, right? Even though he knows Jonathan can defend himself just fine.

Or hell, maybe he forgot that, too. Maybe he's just swapped Jonathan and Jamie in his memory. One son was hopeless at fighting and was always being called a fairy, and one actually turned out to be one of _those_ people, so those were probably all the same son, right?

"Boston is a college town," Mark says for some reason. "I suspect that correlates with a higher rate of corrected vision than the national average." Oh, right. They were _actually_ talking about glasses. Mark picks his up from the table but just holds them for a moment, considering. "Most eyeglasses are made with plastic these days, too, but they were probably made of real glass back then. A fistfight would have been dangerous to both parties, I imagine." He goes ahead and puts his glasses on.

He's starting to sound more settled. Jonathan smiles, as much at that as to acknowledge the point. "Okay, that makes sense." But then his smile slips a bit as something else occurs to him. "Do you think he _treyfed_ the kitchen?"

Mark clearly doesn't follow. "What do you mean?"

"He got water for both of you, right?" Jonathan gestures to the glasses on the table. "He would have poked around for a while, looking for something else to drink, before he settled on that." They have milk, juice, and soda all readily available in the fridge, and there's coffee that can be made with just a little more effort, but Dad would have expected a beer. Not finding that, he _might_ have checked around to see if there was any whiskey.

Mark looks very slightly surprised, as if he didn't expect Jonathan to have considered that stuff yet. He would've appreciated the bit about finding the car. It's not an impressive enough feat to stand up to recounting now, but … it warms Jonathan to know that Mark would have noticed.

Anyway. "He likes bacon and Taylor ham, and he absolutely would have had _some_ kind of meat for lunch, and he might not have washed his hands after —"

"It's fine," Mark says, smiling a little.

"But what if he —"

"It's _fine_. I promise. I'm not worried about it, and you don't have to worry in my place, okay?"

Jonathan tries to be careful, but he does always worry a little that he'll screw things up. Mark has told him he worries too much about it, though, and he wants Jonathan to drop it now, so he does.

"Where is your father, anyway?" Mark asks.

"Gone," Jonathan assures him. "Probably headed off to pick Mom up from her friend's house."

Mark looks saddened at that news. "You shouldn't have had to run your father off just because of me."

Jonathan releases his hands and leans back in the chair, suddenly tired. "I did have to run him off. And it wasn't only about what he did to you. Proportional relationship, remember?"

It's been his New Year's resolution this year and last, because Katie's wedding made him rethink a lot of things, and he's actually doing better than he expected at keeping it up.

"They didn't say a thing about coming up here. If I had gone down to visit an old school friend without a word to them, I would _never_ have heard the end of it, but apparently it's fine for them to do it. Honestly, I suspect they were actually hoping to sneak up on Katie after. Yeah, I called to warn her. But Dad got bored just hanging around while there was _girl talk_ going on, I bet, so he wandered over this way just for something to do."

Mark looks confused. "This late? It took him that long to get bored, but he couldn't tough it out any longer?"

"Well, it's not all that late, I guess. Mom would've wanted to see her friends at church, and probably wrap up some project or another, and then they would've headed up here. End up in Southie, drop Mom off … if he was waiting around here for a couple of hours, he probably decided they had cooties pretty quickly."

That just makes Mark even more confused, though. "A couple of hours?"

Oh, right, he missed that part. "He forgot I would be at work today. So he sat out front reading the paper."

It takes Mark a second to speak. "Have you ever _not_ had to work the weekend? I mean, I know you take vacations or get comp time occasionally, but …"

"Back when I was patrol, rotating shifts," Jonathan offers.

Mark is starting to get annoyed. "Wouldn't that have been …"

"Yeah." Mark really would sit there and work out exactly how long it's been, possibly even down to the number of weeks and days, because he wasn't around back then but he's bothered to ask about the important dates and he's bothered to remember them since. Jonathan had no hope of getting weekend days off when he first made detective, just over a decade ago, and there's never really been a good point to change that since, especially once he and Tonya teamed up. "In fairness, it's not like he's been trying to date me. It's been more obvious to you."

The annoyance turns back to sadness. "It's really not out of line for you to expect him to remember that you work weekends. I'm sure I've heard you mention it over the phone to them. They _really_ can't say you've never told them."

Part of "proportional relationship" is not spending all night arguing their side over his own anymore. Jonathan sighs and lets Mark's point stand. "Anyway. Showing up with no notice just because he's bored is still visiting at all, so I figured it was worth a chat and a nice walk that got him back to his car. That seemed fair. That's … that's fair, right?"

He's no _good_ at this. He's been chasing after all of them for so long, and they've just sat back and let him. He decided that he wasn't going to do all the work anymore, that he'll limit himself to matching their effort, but he doesn't always know _how_.

And he wants to count all the other factors — upsetting Mark, not even noticing he'd done so, not even _trying_ to remember _anything_ , insisting on calling Mark his "friend". That should all lose Dad a ton of points, shouldn't it? But is Jonathan even allowed to count that stuff?

Mark puts out his hand. "Get back over here, you." Jonathan sits back up, and Mark pulls him into a hug — awkward at this angle, too, but so welcome. "Yes. That sounds fair to me." He pulls back again, just far enough to look in Jonathan's eyes, his hands resting on Jonathan's shoulders. "I don't think you could be unfair if you tried. I know this has been hard, but I think it's been better for you."

Jonathan isn't any happier since he started this whole thing. But he's not any less happy, either, honestly, and he's spending a _lot_ less time and effort for the same outcome. Mark's probably right.

Mark takes a deep breath, letting his hands drop. "Do you want to invite them over for dinner?"

It's clear he doesn't really want to offer that. He just feels like he should.

"No," Jonathan tells him. "Well. Yes and no, but it's mostly no."

That gets a small smile. "Is that just because you feel torn?"

Mark will let him get away with just nodding, but Jonathan wants to be honest with him when he can. He lies too much as it is. "It's a little bit yes, because … it could be nice. Because if they came over to dinner, that means you'd be cooking. And you're _so good_. And they wouldn't believe it at first, because they really do think a meal isn't a meal if there isn't any meat, and you'd — yeah, you'd get that look right there, that _challenge accepted_ look, and you'd manage to whip up some … I don't know, twelve-course extravaganza in about twenty minutes —"

"I'm honestly not _that_ good," Mark protests, but his smile is getting much bigger.

"Hush, you are too. And things would be awkward at first, but we could talk about the Sox for a while, and then you and Dad would get talking about … something that fits both cars and … chemistry, somehow. Fuel mixes? Or maybe you both like the same TV show or movie or book. And they'd be amazed at how good your food is, and Mom would decide that _maybe_ she could trade you _one_ of her recipes, only she'd realize it calls for meat, but then you'd explain how you adapt recipes, and she wouldn't really believe that could work so you'd have to arrange a way for you to prove it, and … and just …"

His fingers, lacking anything else to do, are fidgeting with the bottom edge of his jacket. He makes them stop. It stresses the fabric.

"They'd finally figure out you're just another son-in-law they could get to know, like Tom and Dan." Only smarter, but Mark doesn't like for Jonathan to say that.

Mark takes Jonathan's hands in his own, copying the random motions Jonathan used on him earlier. It actually does feel nice. "And the mostly no?"

It's mostly no because it _could_ be nice, but it wouldn't be. Not really. "It's probably late for dinner for them. Mom might already have eaten with her friend, even. And … it's possible Dad didn't just come over because he was bored. I mean, I'm pretty sure it was mostly that, but … there's always a chance he was scouting to make sure this place wasn't filled with … you know. Fabulous _lifestyle_ or something."

Mark is very well acquainted with Jonathan's tendency to veer into obscurity when it comes to talking about orientation stuff, and he clearly gets what Jonathan really means, but he doesn't seem to know how to react to it. "Have they actually _met_ you?" he asks finally.

Jonathan knows he means well, but that question hurts, because of course they have, but they never act like it. They act like he's some stranger they don't particularly _want_ to understand. "Anyway. He might have been scouting to see if it was 'safe' for them to invite themselves to stay the night, or _expect_ at me until I offered, or something. But Dad didn't actually ask, and Mom wasn't even here and maybe that's so she could be all disapproving if they did come over, and they haven't given _any_ sign they wouldn't be awful to you, and you shouldn't have to deal with that. And neither should I," he adds, before Mark can protest. "I'm tired. It makes me tired. They're _so much work_ , and … not tonight, okay?"

Proportional relationship. Dad has shown he's entirely capable of putting his foot down when he wants something to happen. Mom keeps pushing herself on Katie when Katie doesn't even want her there. If they ever want more time with Jonathan, if they ever want _him_ , they're perfectly capable of making that clear.

His actions, or lack thereof, aren't the only barrier to a relationship with his parents.

"Not tonight," Mark agrees. He's trying not to show his own relief too openly, which isn't really necessary but is still nice of him. "For what it's worth … since you shared your fantasy scenario … I've been thinking about one of my own. There's a part of me that always thought if I could just sit down with one of your parents, I could explain to them how little they've done to deserve you and how very much they're losing out because of it. I would know how to make them understand how much their choices have been hurting you. I would be able to find all the right words to convince them to choose _you_ over all the nonsense." His mouth twists with self-recrimination. "I would be able to find _any_ words ..."

This is hurting both of them. " _You_ chose me," Jonathan says. He still can't figure out _why_ , and that scares him because he doesn't know what to do to make sure Mark wants to stay, but Mark did choose him and he shows over and over again that he really means it. "I chose you. Can we — _I want_ to focus on that. Just that. Okay?"

Mark takes a moment, making himself release his frustration, before nodding a little and then finding a gentle smile. "I like the way you think. Focusing on each other sounds like an excellent plan." He reaches over and tugs very gently at Jonathan's tie. "Thank you for telling me something you want," he says as Jonathan willingly leans forward to be kissed.

He still privately thinks it's silly. He's no more comfortable with _I want_ statements than he was when Mark started this routine. They're selfish, and he struggles with his own selfishness enough as it is. But Mark asked him to try, and he believes in positive reinforcement, and he's stuck with it far longer than Jonathan ever expected he would, and he's the qualified educator here.

Besides. Kissing is nice.

It's not always a kiss, of course. Jonathan actually started _avoiding_ the I-wants near the beginning, even more than he usually did, because he didn't want Mark to feel obligated. He couldn't bear the thought of Mark feeling like he had to offer any kind of intimacy he didn't want. But Mark picked up on it, because he _pays attention_ , and they talked it over. Mark will occasionally substitute some other nice gesture, and he shows his likes and dislikes pretty clearly. He always gives Jonathan a chance to opt out, too, which is reassuring since it shows he remembers he can opt out himself.

So it's not always a kiss. It just usually is.

This one is gentle and unhurried. They've both had a stressful time. Once they finish, Mark runs his fingers over Jonathan's tie again and then works the end free so he can regard it fully.

"You wore a nice one today," he notes, pleased.

Jonathan always used to buy cheap strips of dark, boring fabric for work. There wasn't much point in spending more when there's always a chance his clothes will be soiled or ruined. But Mark has some silly sciencey ties that he wears to class sometimes, and Jonathan commented on a few of them, appreciating the puns or smiling to realize what the patterns actually were. And then when they both started getting invited to dinners together, sometimes that involved dressing up, and Jonathan tried to wear nicer ties to those occasions.

Mark noticed his interest and care, he noticed which patterns caught Jonathan's eye in stores before Jonathan made himself be sensible, he started pointing out ties that seemed unremarkable from a distance but actually had intriguing patterns or weaves …

He paid attention, and he noticed something that might make Jonathan happy, and he helped Jonathan see it himself. And now Jonathan has a small but growing collection of ties he actively likes. He doesn't always wear one of them to work — and never any of the very best ones — because there's still a chance of ruin, but he indulges occasionally. Like today.

"It's Sunday," he says, in reply to Mark's comment. He still misses dressing up for church, and sometimes he lets that affect his choice of tie.

Mark smiles in acknowledgement and lets the tie go again. "You know, I just realized, I never did get a chance to open a window."

"It's fifty degrees out there!" Jonathan protests.

"Yes — cool enough that I wouldn't want all the windows open, or even one for very long, but warm enough to be worth airing this place out a little. It's a little stuffy in here, especially if I'm going to be working over a hot stove."

"You don't — we can get takeout —" Jonathan starts to say, even though he _knows_ better, knows Mark is just using that phrasing to be silly.

"I like working over a hot stove," Mark reminds him. "I was planning to cook anyway, and I think I particularly want the distraction now. Is there any chance you'd be up for some Mad Soup Science?"

Oh, that's actually tempting. Jonathan makes sure to let his reaction show. He's not very hungry when he's stressed, but soup is sneaky and tends to seem lighter than it really is. And Mark's soup experiments involve a lot of tasting and testing and general messing around. The end result is unpredictable — sometimes fantastic, a couple of times ultimately inedible, usually somewhere in the middle — but the process is pretty much always entertaining. It's certainly a good diversion.

"Well, it's definitely warm in here if I'm going to be making soup, so would you please open a window a little?" Mark rests his hand on Jonathan's knee, which is just bouncing away. Jonathan stills it, irritated at himself. "Then you'll be back and forth several times, checking whether it's getting too cold yet, before you end up closing it again, so that will let you move around a bit."

Jonathan opens his mouth to apologize for his restlessness, but Mark gives him a _don't even start_ look, so he switches to just saying, "Okay." He goes over and fiddles with a window for a bit as Mark gets himself over into the kitchen and washes up.

He also calls Katie again, just to be sure she gets the message. With his luck, they'd all meet up outside and then his parents would end up hearing the message he left on the answering machine. He calls Katie's cell phone this time, hoping he's not risking waking her up.

The phone is answered quickly, but it's Dan's voice that snaps, " _Not_ a good —" before abruptly changing course. "Oh, Jon. Sorry. Got your message. _Thank you_. Gotta run." Dan hangs up. Well, that pretty much answers that, but at least it means Katie knows to brace herself or hide at a friend's or whatever it is they're doing over there. Jonathan has done his part.

He then goes over to wash up himself, since he'll be playing Igor. Mark has settled himself on his stool in front of the stove. "Did that actually help at all?" he asks. "It wasn't much of a walk."

It's all a hell of a lot better than _sitting_ , that's for sure. "A little, actually, yeah. What'll we need?' Jonathan starts with Mark's usual cookware for soup experiments and then starts fetching foodstuffs as Mark lists them.

Once enough items have been retrieved or diced or grated, Mark starts combining a few in the frying pan, so Jonathan settles in behind him, careful not to block Mark's range of motion as they enter into yet another oddly angled hug. This one's more comfortable than the others, though, and Mark relaxes back against him a bit as he works.

"Are you okay?" Mark asks after a few minutes.

Jonathan usually says he's fine, but some lies are too obvious for even him to be able to sell them. "Mostly," he says instead. "I'm …"

He's furious at himself for letting Mark get hurt again. He's furious at his father for hurting Mark and not bothering to try with Jonathan. He's furious at his father for doing something that _looks_ like trying and getting Jonathan's hopes up yet again.

He's scared that he screwed up and missed his chance, because what if Dad really meant it this time? It's never actually worked out before, but what if the seven-hundred-and-forty-second time would have been the charm?

He's relieved that he didn't roll over and beg his parents to come over tonight to put both him and Mark through a few hours of not-especially-well-meaning conversation, and he hates that he's relieved. A small, shameful part of him is annoyed that he can't just let them go, and he's enraged at himself for wanting that because they're his _family_.

He can't stand feeling unsafe in his own home, even if it was only for a few seconds.

And he really, really fucking _hates_ surprises.

"I'm angry," he admits. "But this isn't the time or the place."

Mark pauses. "You deserve to be able to express —"

"Not here, not now," Jonathan says firmly, squeezing Mark a little more to ease any sting.

Mark's idea of "expressing anger" is _talking_ about it — setting it out and analyzing it clinically. Dissecting it. Jonathan's idea of "expressing anger" is renting out a batting cage and swinging a bat until he can't feel his hands anymore and his arms ache up into his neck. It's walking for miles and miles, even until almost sunrise if he doesn't have work the next day. It's finding something that needs energetic putting-together or, better, taking apart. It might have been yelling, too, except there's no one he can yell at, besides unsuspecting pillows. Or himself, but that's abstract again.

Jonathan's expressions of anger are physical, which means they _can't_ be here, because physical anger makes Mark get all quiet and small.

Jonathan will be fine. He can put it off for now, and he can go walk once Mark falls asleep. Not all night this time, because he does have work tomorrow, but enough to get a handle on it again.

Mark hesitates but lets it go. He's always wanted Jonathan to open up more, but he knows Jonathan often _can't_. He nudges sometimes, but he doesn't push too hard, because he knows Jonathan doesn't want him to. Now he says instead, "So. Darmok and Jalad, huh?"

"Did you know Tonya is a _gigantic nerd_?"

"Mmm, yes, I'm sure that's entirely her and not at all you."

It's nice of him to suggest Jonathan might be one, too — some of Jonathan's favorite people are nerds, Mark very much included — but Jonathan knows he isn't qualified. "I know what Tonya uses the Darmok thing _for_ , but what does it actually mean?"

And Mark explains as he stirs and mixes and reconsiders certain combinations and assigns Jonathan little tasks.

What they do and don't talk about isn't the only consideration he's showing. All this cooking they're doing now is partly for Mark himself, but it's also his way of taking care of Jonathan, giving him a distraction and seeking a way to provide food that will actually appeal even in times of stress. He's determined to look after Jonathan, and Jonathan has no idea how he got so lucky.

He almost says that, but if he does, Mark will just reply that _he's_ the lucky one. It's a ludicrous claim, easily disproven, but Mark insists on trying to argue the point anyway. Which just proves _Jonathan's_ point even further.

There's still a part of him that wishes he could have invited his parents over and actually gotten that nice dinner. Maybe someday that can actually happen. But it _won't_ happen if they're not willing to try, and he's done begging them to care.

Jonathan has people who do care and show it. Mark, of course. Mark's mother, who treats Jonathan as something between a son-in-law and a bonus son. Katie and Dan and the kids, Tonya and Lije, Andy. A few close friends just outside that first circle as well. He may doubt that he does enough to deserve them, but he never has to doubt that he _has_ them. They make it clear, all the time.

His family knows how to reach out to him if they ever decide to. Until then, he'll give them what they give him, no less but no more. Until then, he'll spend his time and energy on the people who spend theirs on him.

**Author's Note:**

> Content notes (not guaranteed to be exhaustive; please stay safe and ask questions as needed): Stress reactions to prior traumas; emotional self-abuse; DIY therapy; brief discussion of responsible policing and gun use; a very small action that could trigger for self-harm; discussion of food/cooking; slangy misuse of the term "insane"; mentions of ableist attitudes regarding physical disability; mention of homophobic attitudes including one slur.


End file.
